Straighter than Parallel Parking

≈ f i f t e e n ≈

{ Chapter Fifteen: A Gracious Gift }

SATURDAY EVENING SETTLED DOWN SIGNIFICANTLY from its rocky start. Having got off "message" with James, who ended up having to leave because he has an exam on Monday (she always forgets that they're pretty much the same age), Janice heads over to her bed, plugs in her headphones, and closes her eyes. She can't seem to find sleep, even though drowsiness takes over from there.

She is itching to get a frying pan in one hand with a whole stocked fridge at the tip of the other, but it felt too soon to go back upstairs and face anyone. She wasn't ready to confront anybody with an apology or handle another degrading retort that would most likely result in a punch she was aching to throw. Hopefully with a frying pan, she thought grumpily.

With her audio on max and her window lights dimmed from the sky's quickly deteriorating from sky blue to an ultramarine hue, she instead is soon lost to the edgy allure of Zella Day, a songwriter that could paint images vividly inside her mind like a canvas.

All she wants is a blank page, without memories, without emotion, because it hurts too much to feel sometimes.

I fear you've made Janice out to be very easily hurt and emotional. This, however, is not the case. Janice is an expert in manipulation; she will disguise her discomfort in humour, her frowns in exaggerated laughs, her hurt in sarcastic comments. (Though she literally just talks in sarcastic comments, so).

She is under the influence that emotion shown is weak. Yes, she will talk about things that worry her and that stress her, but only when pretenses ask her of it. Her mind is a conundrum she wishes she could solve, but she's incapable of creating solutions more difficult than two plus two. She feels; she is subtle about it, but she does. Sadly, she never allows anyone to see it.

Except for one person.

Maybe it's because he chose her when all she's been taught is rejection (I'm like a broken record, trying to bring pity, but Janice doesn't do pity, so keep it), or because he held her—quite literally—when the one who was supposed to threw her away (even if he probably dropped her a couple times). He was the first person to show her happiness, affection, and goddamn appreciation.

As the polite knocking on her door would be any indication.

She thought that the episode upstairs was a kind "please leave me the hell alone or may God please have mercy on you the way I won't, thank you". Guess it wasn't clear enough.

"Come in," grunts Janice, sitting up and leaning against her bed board. Her father quietly closes the door behind him and walks over to Janice, taking a seat on the edge of her bed. She wasn't sure if he was going to apologize, but if he was, she was already 202% done with this conversation already.

"Do you need anything?" she asks him, pulling a headphone out of her ear, pausing the song she'd been listening to.

"Actually, I wanted to talk about something," says her father.

Janice purses her lips. "Dad, it's fine about what happened in the morning. What happened, happ—"

"I'm not talking about the morning." Janice snaps her mouth shut, suddenly nervous about what else he could be talking about. "I want to talk about... something you are free to not contribute to, but should probably be discussed."

"Did I get expelled? Oh, god, I knew the project was a scam," Janice starts babbling, listing all the possibilities running through her head. "Does this mean I have to relocate? Are we moving? Do I need to bunk with someone? Please tell me you're not placing me with Karlo; his stuff takes up more space than mine!"